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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24735367">Bring the Light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikey_A/pseuds/checkers'>checkers (Mikey_A)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cytus (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Mutual Pining, Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:15:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,773</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24735367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikey_A/pseuds/checkers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neko realises she's in love with Aroma, and because her self esteem is through the floor, assumes the worst. About everything.</p><p>This is for Nekopaff Week 2020! The title is from the song Bring the Light by Night Keepers</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Asakura Neko | NEKO#ΦωΦ/Aroma White | Paff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bring the Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello! I am so very excited to be posting this. I don't write fanfiction a lot, so please give me your opinion because I have no clue what I'm doing. Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are two different kinds of games that we play.</p><p>The first kind is played with other people. It's the type of game with which we are familiar;  the kind we associate with the word "game" when we hear it. These games, whether they be of the board, video, or mind subcategory, have many purposes, but they are usually used to entertain ourselves or others and sometimes even for personal gain (wealth, power, love, pick your poison.) They are addictive, but mostly harmless pastimes if the player is cautious.</p><p>The second kind is decidedly less harmless. This is the kind played within ourselves. This game is inevitable and mandatory. There is no cheating. To live is to play the game: to love and to hurt and to hope and to fail. We stumble to find ourselves blindfolded; we pray that we know the way.</p><p>Somehow, Neko has only ever mastered the former type.</p><p>Now, she is forced to play both.</p><p>If she's being honest with herself, she doesn't know how long she's been at it - hell, she doesn't even remember what game she's playing anymore. She remembers going to bed. That's a start. She remembers seeing Aroma next to her and thinking perhaps this was the first time she had ever really seen her. She definitely remembers the aching feeling, because it hasn't stopped since, and something tells her that it was there before she had noticed it, also, but she's never been good at that stuff, so she did what she always does when she needs to figure something out... the only thing she can do, now that she thinks about it. She sat down at her computer and began to play. After that, it's kind of a blur.</p><p>That could have been days ago, so far as she knows. And maybe it was (although she knows that it has to still be the same night. Surely if it isn't, Aroma would be awake by now... Right?) It's just so easy for her to get lost in this - her hands move so mechanically at this point; she knows her moves and the controls that would get her there. She knows how to win. And this late at night (she knows it has to be late,) when she's not streaming or performing for anyone else, just playing the game, she's... surprisingly calm. Because of course all the yelling is an act. It always has been. Just being competent isn't enough - just plain Neko isn't enough. You don't get views from sitting down and shutting up. That's not how that particular game was played - it wasn't in the rules.</p><p>Neko passed another level.</p><p>Now she wondered about the rules of the other kind of game she was playing. In her mind, she imagined a rulebook with leather binding and weathered pages, something old and official-looking that fit the bill for something so important. With careful, ornate lettering, vey different from her scrawl in reality, she began to write.</p><p>Rule One:</p><p>Neko pauses, rolling it over in her head a couple times. After all the action was over - you know, saving the world and other fun vacations to have with friends - everything was supposed to be better. And it kind of was. She found a way to help people and do what she loved, and how many people could really say that? She has a solid group of friends that she knows love and support her (although sometimes she wonders - sometimes she lies awake at night and plays the game differently, listing every reason she deserves this loneliness - but this is not one of those nights, she decides.) Aroma visits all the time these days; after all, she had lived in her room for a long time, why shouldn't she stay over more? And they were good friends now. It wasn't supposed to mean anything else.</p><p>But now, out of the blue, it means absolutely everything, and she thinks maybe underneath the stress of protecting her friends from imminent danger that it always has. Has this been happening to her all along? Aroma is burned into her mind now, into her life: Aroma huddled outside her door in the rain, Aroma laughing for the first time when Neko tells a joke to make her more comfortable, Aroma smiling gratefully when Neko takes care of her, Aroma singing softly to herself when she thinks nobody can hear, Aroma sleeping peacefully next to her on the bed, as soft as she's always been... as she's always allowed herself to be. Something inside her actually flutters.</p><p>Oh, god. When Neko realizes she's in love, her blood runs cold. Immediately, she takes a mental tally of who could possibly know. There's no way Aroma knows. She wouldn't be here if she did (and Neko tries not to think about how much that stings.) Does Xenon know? She wouldn't be surprised if he did. He is her best friend, after all - actually, scratch that, he's a brother to her. He knows her better than everyone, and if anyone knew, it would be him. The thought terrified her. How long has she felt this way? The ache she feels in her chest seems too familiar to be completely new. Yet, every moment feels like the first time she's felt it: like playing her favorite song from the rooftop under a billion stars or lying in an endless field on a cool, sunny day. How could something so freeing make her feel so trapped? Neko's screen flashed, "GAME OVER," and she briefly touched back with reality to press the restart button. Returning to the list, her mind began writing again.</p><p>Rule One: You Cannot Win.</p><p>And she knows it's true. Someone like her isn't really cut in the right shape for anyone to love like that, let alone someone so wonderful. She was always too much for that, too loud, too talkative, too silly, too annoying, too useless. And in her friendships, she could be okay with that (she's not sure that she really is, not where it really counts, but she's so good at pretending at this point that as long as it keeps her friends happy, she's willing to keep saying that she is,) but in a romantic relationship... She doesn't want to put anyone through that. </p><p>Come to think of it, Neko doesn't even know if Aroma likes girls. She knows that there's a lot of pain somewhere deep inside. Aroma doesn't talk about it, and a lot of it has healed since they first met, but Neko just knows. Nobody acts the way she does - as if everyone else is somehow more deserving than her - without being a little damaged first. She's probably the most selfless person Neko has ever met, and she deserves to be herself... to feel like herself. Suddenly, Hayato sticks in her mind, and she feels even more foolish. She's too tired to be jealous anymore (anymore? How long has she been jealous?) and instead she's almost relieved, because now there's a reason for her to store her feelings in a small box and shove it where it'll never be seen again. How can she not be happy for them? They aren't exactly dating yet, but she sees the heart eyes he makes at her, and maybe Aroma doesn't look back the same way, but she doesn't really make many strong facial expressions anyway. Right? They had a history, and Neko was sure he made her feel happy and whole in a way she could never dream to. How could she want anything else for her? And if it was unfair, if it screwed her over in the end, she could take that loss. That was a choice she would make again and again given the opportunity. She added another rule.</p><p>Rule Two: You Can't Break Even.</p><p>Because there's no getting out of this one without losing something. No matter how tightly and neatly she packs it all away, she can't just change the way she feels. Things this strong have a way of seeping through the cracks. Somehow, she thinks it'll always hurt, and it makes her feel like an idiot because of course Aroma doesn't love her in that way. She wouldn't ever dare to assume she's good enough for her (hell, she's not even good enough for her as a friend. Or for any of her other friends, for that matter,) and she's always known this, so why does the thought of it hurt her so much? And she swears up and down to herself that it's fine. It's better than losing Aroma forever, or worse, forcing her to be in a relationship with her when she knows Aroma can do so much better. No matter which way the cards are dealt, Neko loses.</p><p>"GAME OVER," the screen reads again, and this time, it's like a punch to the gut.</p><p>"DAMN IT!"</p><p>It's the first thing Neko's said in what was probably hours, and it feels good, so she does it over and over again until her head feels so heavy it drops to the desk in exhaustion.</p><p>"N... Neko?" Aroma's voice sounds gentle and groggy behind her, and the sweetness behind it almost makes Neko hold her breath. "Are you okay?"</p><p>"Eh?? Aroma-chan! NEKO's sorry! She didn't mean to scare you, she just couldn't sleep, that's all! You should go back to sleep, you need your rest!" She put on a casual look and swirled around to face her, and it just was not fair how different it was to look at her now. She can feel Aroma studying her, and doesn't quite meet her eyes, afraid it'll give too much away. She had a way of looking directly through her, which was unnerving when Neko spent so much effort constructing the front she put up around other people. Finally, she seemed to concede.</p><p>"Okay. Come back to bed soon, okay? You need to sleep, too."</p><p>Neko nods, but Aroma's eyes are closed, and she watches her fall back asleep. It hits her just then how badly she wants this. She lets herself imagine, for a moment, that she gets to sleep next to Aroma every night, and she's asking her to come back to bed, and it's all sort of the same, but so very, very different, and she feels selfish for having the audacity to want that. But then she takes another look at Aroma's face, and everything inside her goes soft again. She adds one last rule.</p><p>Rule Three: You Can Never, Ever Give Up.</p><p>Neko turns around in her chair and clicks the restart button again.</p>
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